Will Texas Cave like North Carolina?

Democrats are messing with Texas, pushing hard against SB 6, the Texas Privacy Act, which makes an individual’s biological sex the determining factor for accessing bathrooms, locker rooms and shower rooms in the Lone Star State.

“Essentially what they’re arguing about is, Should trans people be allowed to exist?,” 18-year-old Rowan says of politicians looking to pass legislation like SB 6.

Rowan seems to be conflating legalized abortion (the only U.S. law condoning murder) with metal placards denoting “male” or “female” outside of bathroom stalls.

Clarifying bathroom rules is a pragmatic, loving and ethical approach to an extremely politically correct society. Consider the basic fact that less than 1% of the adult U.S. population identifies as transgender. No one is arguing the inherent dignity due to all persons. SB 6 is about making 99.4% of people comfortable, while still treating the remaining 0.6% with dignity because they are human beings.

The Fluids

“Fluid” is a key word that individuals who identify as LGBTQAI employ to assert their resistance to committing to either the male or female gender.

‘I’m a moving target. I don’t know—or refuse to admit—what sexual orientation I will identify with in the future.”

That is what every person who calls themselves “gender fluid” is really saying.

Yes, free speech allows you to call yourself “fluid.” But your right to free speech doesn’t force the rest of us to take a bulldozer to our bathrooms. When you say you’re “gender fluid,” you’re really conceding that you’re impossible to please. The legislation that you claim to want today will—by your own admission—not necessarily please you forever.

Small businesses—from gas stations, to pizza parlors, to local pubs—should not be mandated to go bankrupt gutting and remodeling their restrooms every few years based on whims of the Fluids. Indeed, if we were to tell someone from another country that our country passes laws based on 0.6% of the population—they’d probably laugh out loud.

Long-Term Thinking: Economics 101

Obviously, in a moral society, our first and strongest argument against allowing biological males to share a communal restroom with biological females would be an appeal to natural law, or the conscience.

So, I recommend we employ an economic argument. After all, those who oppose SB 6 are employing an economic argument of their own. Texas’ largest cities will lose $407 million in revenue from conferences and sporting events!, SB 6 opponents claim.

Dallas, for example, will supposedly lose $157 million in potential convention revenue; Houston will lose $100 million and Austin will lose $110 million. And a whopping two groups have told the City of San Antonio that they will reconsider hosting events in San Antonio if the bill passes.

Such claims, however, represent short-term thinking. And basing important decisions on short-term thinking is generally a great way to make a fatal mistake.

Why are we presuming that—10 years from now—businesspeople will still want to gather in hotels for conferences? Nothing about the typical conference (expensive prices; boring topics; outdated PowerPoint presentations; rubber chicken dinners; and dorky name tags on lanyards) resonates with my generation (Millennials are cheap; tech-savvy; picky eaters; and nonconformist).

When all the Baby Boomers eventually do retire, the next generation of CEOs is more likely to gather their forces for a remote yoga retreat center in the Rocky Mountains than a stiff and formal conference at a swanky hotel in a densely-populated downtown area.

So why would we pass a law—and force thousands of businesses to spend millions of dollars retrofitting their bathrooms—based on a corporate activity (traditional conference-going) that may be extinct within the next decade?

Writing bathroom legislation on the possibility of losing the next NCAA championship; World Series; or Super Bowl in Texas is also silly, short-term thinking. The NFL never pulled Super Bowl 2017 from Houston, despite the fact that Houston voters shut down a piece of legislation that would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to anti-discrimination rules.

Equality at Stake

Transgender bathrooms, interestingly but not surprisingly, are the brainchild of President Obama. Last May, he issued an order via the Justice Department which arbitrarily stated that “As a condition of receiving Federal funds,” schools must not discriminate on sex—and must allow transgender students to decide which bathroom works best of them, regardless of the views of the majority of the student body.

Obama set a dangerous precedent with this directive such that transgender students have more rights than those who identify as heterosexual or homosexual. How long is it before a new protected class displaces the transgender class?

Bathroom legislation such as SB 6 actually recognizes the equality that every American has before the law better than directives such as Obama’s. SB 6 treats people as equal by taking into account the one factor we can know with certitude about every human being: their biological sex. By considering a known factor that we were all born with—rather than a fluid, moving target—namely the sexual identity with which they identify on any given day—we are treating everyone equally before the law.

Determining bathroom access by biological sex is not a judgment against someone who identifies as transgender. It’s as matter-of-fact and impersonal as a birth certificate. Private stalls will surely become the wave of the future, allowing every individual to have privacy in the bathroom. Until then, we can’t force small businesses to go bankrupt catering to the constantly fluctuating sexual orientations of their patrons.

Texas, don’t follow North Carolina’s lead and cave on this important issue. Stand up for true equality and tell the Democrats to “Come and take it.”

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